Problem: Even the most powerful PC's become non responsive during resource-intensive computations, such as graphic design, media, image rendering and manipulating. The traditional solution has been to upgrade to a faster computer and throw more computing power at the problem to lessen the wait-time. But there's a simple solution that utilizes multiple machines, but without using grid/clustering. For now, this involves a hack, but how hard would it be for an OS vendor to streamline this process?

"I don't understand why Windows let's programmes hog the cpu. I always find it so frustrating when I'm multitasking and one program suddenly get 99% of the cpu, I can't even minimize the window! It seems so simple to think of this problem beforehand and program the os in such a way as to keep it responsive. If it's gonna use 75% and take a bit longer, fine with me, because then I can check out my email in the mean time. Or is that too much too ask of an OS?"

just go to google and type:

windows xp Win32PrioritySeparation

youll find may opinions on the net for optimizing windows memory and cpu priorities.

default for Win32PrioritySeparation=2 but it can be lowered to 0. valid range is 0-38. you might not just have a cpu hog it might also be a memory hog as well.

go to windows task manager then click prosesses tab then right click on the desired process then got to set priority menu and select priority level.